


Romance With A Side Of Bulging Bank Accounts

by minwonhui



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Not K-Pop Idols, Drama, Fashion Designer Xu Ming Hao | The8, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, No Angst, Paris (City), Rags to Riches, Romance, Self-Indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26947501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minwonhui/pseuds/minwonhui
Summary: Junhui's life has been a series of surprises, constantly turning over from one end to another. So if Junhui can finally be in control of it, why not do the things he wants to do.Xu Minghao happens to be one of them.
Relationships: Wen Jun Hui | Jun/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Kudos: 27





	Romance With A Side Of Bulging Bank Accounts

**Author's Note:**

> Ok quick disclaimer that I do not know anything about these places or being rich or whatever and things that come with being rich, ok thank u, enjoy

  
"I'm sorry, Mr. Wen won't be taking any questions at this time. Please make way so he can move, please move aside."

All of it felt so... dramatic. The entire setting itself felt like it was playing out in slow motion, as if he's on that one scene of a crime movie where the protagonists successfully fool the rich people and leave their bank accounts dry. His own situation wasn't that far off from the mentioned scenario either.

It was a great decision on his part not to change his last name after marriage, now that he thinks about it, even if he had to put up a _little_ bit of a fight. It wasn't as if the arrangement was meant to last long by any means, if Junhui was ever going to have a say in it.

After all, Junhui was still pretty young when he had gotten married. Still at the ripe age of 24, when his "husband", let's just call him Mr. Lee, a millionaire and 59 years of age, decided that he "would be blessed to spend the rest of his life with Junhui" (or whatever was left of it, he had thought back then, those lungs couldn't survive his cigarettes for much longer.)

Now as he reminisced, Junhui can't really make himself feel bad about not ever reciprocating Lee's feelings, no matter how strong the elder man thought they were. Life wasn't particularly nice to Junhui in the financial aspect from the beginning, as he was having only a high school level education because of his family's struggling income, and then working small, manual labour jobs here and there that didn't require any degrees or a lot of educational achievements. So it is safe to say, that he was only ever in it for the money.

He happened upon the man on one of his odd jobs, he doesn't even remember what it was at this point in his life, by "a complete stroke of luck that changed his life forever", as Junhui would jovially say to the tabloid interviewers whenever he was asked about their relationship. It wasn't even half false, because that fateful meeting definitely did change his life from that moment forth.

Mr. Lee quickly took to him, invited him to the nearest coffee shop a mere minute after they bumped into each other, tried his best to romance him there. Junhui was initially going to be disgusted by his attempts, but after he managed to get a glimpse of the inside of his wallet while the other man was paying for both of their drinks, the only thing Junhui could think was, "well, well, well. Let's give it a shot."

Turns out, Mr. Lee was, for a lack of better words, so utterly desperate that he literally offered to fund Junhui's entire bachelor's degree studies when he mentioned that he wasn't in college due to lack of finances, on the exact same day of their meeting. It'd be absolutely criminal to pass on an offer like that, you couldn't even lie about it.

Rest of it went by quite quickly, actually. The marriage was definitely unprecedented, it was sprung up on him when he was being technically "sponsored" through his Arts bachelor's degree, but with the way Lee had been living the previous few years of his life, Junhui could easily strategize how to use the situation to his advantage, because obviously, it wasn't going to last very long.

Well, no one gets to blame him for Lee casually writing down his own will everytime he decided to smoke a whole box of cigarettes in one go.

There had been quite a few speculations about his actual intentions for getting into an affair with a millionaire businessman after coming from the background that he did, the word "gold-digger" being boldly mentioned in some of the articles Junhui happened upon when he was bored. Junhui wasn't going to tell them they weren't wrong, now, was he?

He stayed mostly away from Junhui, fortunately, in their shared penthouse suite, while he was smoking his lungs dry. The man was at least respectful to him in that sense, though a definite asshole in his own time. Junhui could at least bear living with him for a short while. Only a short while, though.

Lee wasn't that bad to Junhui himself, beside the obvious "I'm going to ignore everyone's human rights because their problems don't affect me" issue he had going on regarding most of the population. Typical rich boomer stuff. It was actually the tiniest bit sad to be around him in his last few days, when he was stuck in a hospital bed, strapped to a ventilator, looking like skin on bones. But when the man wrote down Junhui's name in his will to own all his property from henceforth, to be a shareholder in his current running business while the vice president of the company took over the actual workload, and to own most of the money he already had in his bank account, Junhui didn't have it in him to be sad for long.

Which brings him back here to the present. Where he was being escorted through the airport, towards his (now) very own private jet, two days after Lee was declared dead. With cameras flashing all around him and his inherited bodyguards pushing loud reporters away from him, he was headed to Paris, for a "mourning period", as was told to the press. He dressed for the occasion too, a black ensemble completed with a black fur coat dwarfing his long frame, dark sunglasses and a cap hiding his facial features, and his head pulled down, his eyes scanning the floor as he walked. He's gotta play the part, no?

Finally, he reached the jet, after being practically bombarded his entire way from the building to the runway by reporters. It was as he expected, obviously. A smaller plane with a huge, comfortable chair, a sofa lining the opposite wall against the seat, a bar and a lot more that he was too tired to be noting at the moment.

As he stretches back into the seat, he ponders. He thinks about he _knows some_ tabloids have already made up a fake statement as to what he said today and have either painted him as a legitimate gold-digger ("just as they predicted") or someone who's genuinely in grief. He can never tell with them.

Halting his train of thought, Junhui finally takes his huge coat off and throws it on the sofa, with his hat and glasses, and reclines the seat back. It didn't take much time for the plane to take off and for Junhui to drift off to Dreamland, while thinking about the person he was going to be meeting in the city of Paris.

_"What brings a pretty face like yours to this bore of an event?"_

_Junhui turns around from looking out at the party from his vantage point at the rooftop bar, and comes face to face with a young, attractive face, which was the first thing he noticed. It was hard to find a young face at rich people parties (a fundraiser, in today's case), let alone an attractive one. It's always the boomers or their spoilt children. Hopefully, this one doesn't turn out to be the latter._

_"I could say the same to you.", Junhui smirks as he leans against the bar._

_The man smirked, and Junhui took advantage of the time he took to take a sip of the wine in his hand (instead of champagne? That's new.) to give him a once-over. He looked like the textbook definition of "tall, dark, and handsome". Not as tall as him but the pants he wore, made his legs look ridiculously long, and his fashion sense definitely helped show off his body immaculately._

_"Like what you see?"_

_Okay, he's gonna need him to stop smirking, it's really hot, he can't handle it for much longer._

_"Maybe I'll answer that once we get to know each other", Junhui raised an eyebrow._

_The man smiled and extended a hand, "Name's Xu Minghao."_

_"Wen Junhui", he mumbles right as Minghao brings his hand up to his lips._

_"Huh, and they say chivalry is dead."_

_"It never was for me", and he smirks again. God, Junhui isn't gonna last long._

_"You didn't answer my initial question, what does bring you to such a boring event?", the other asked._

_"Oh, my, uhhh, husband. He's out there somewhere."_

_The man was shocked but he quickly schooled his expression into a neutral one. "Oh? I apologise if I've been coming on too strong then-"_

_"No, you're absolutely fine. In fact, I'd love to get to talk to you more. Tell me, what do you do," a wave of his champagne flute to distract the other man from the fact that Junhui was disappointed that he almost left._

_Minghao's smirk grew bigger (and even if it didn't seem possible, sexier) "Of course."_

A few more hours, a luxurious lunch and a long conversation with his personal bodyguard that he, fortunately, inherited (because he was probably the only one of Lee's employees that he actually liked and probably also the only one who didn't think of him as nothing) later, the jet finally started descending into the Roissy Charles de Gaulle.

Paris. Paris, France. The city of romance. The city of fashion. Or, lesser known, the city of the elite. The city of the rich. The city of the people you'll never know exist because they can easily be hidden behind the mountains of money they must probably inherited from their rich families. It's not that Junhui's a romantic or anything. He only chose to come here because, when you're rich, places like Paris just introduce you to a world of overpriced exoticism that youhaven'texperiencedbefore, and hopefully, just can't get enough of.

Oh, and maybe he's here because of a certain someone named Xu Minghao, but he wouldn't look too deep into that.

His bodyguard made his way out of the plane first, Junhui hot on his heels, clutching his LV bag in his hand. Right as they went up into the airport, the initial silence of the VIP section of the airport that greeted them was one of the things Junhui would never get used to in a VIP lifestyle, no matter how many years he's lived in it. It's eerie, having certain privileges that extend into almost everywhere into your life. When privileges separate you entirely from the rest of the population. Well, he's not gonna start complaining now.

One more thing that this city granted him with that he was grateful for, was anonymity. No penetrating stares when he had to go through the public area to get to the parking lot, no curious whispers from any direction he could lay his eyes on, no underpaid mobbing journalists that required five burly men to get them to step back. Just him, and getting lost in the announcements on the speakers, the echoing conversations, and the buzz of machinery.

The illusion of normalcy and facelessness had to fade soon though, when they reached their designated ride to the hotel, a limousine (no surprise there), with extra space for all his luggage, and, of course, some privacy.

Settled and relaxed, the engine of the car buzzed to life to make its way to Four Seasons hotel, was when Junhui finally finished his phone out of his pocket and caught sight of a notification:

**_little froggy 🥰:_ **  
_You here yet?_

**_junhui 💘:_ **  
_Do I take it as a sign that you're eager to see me? Because I gladly will ;)_

**_little froggy 🥰:_ **  
_..._  
_You're insufferable._

God, Junhui could literally see him smirking at his phone in his mind's eye.

**_little froggy 🥰:_ **  
_And yes, I did want to see you._

The butterflies in his stomach are at it again.  
  
**_little froggy 🥰:_**  
_Since you've clearly landed, plz do tell me your room details_

 ** _junhui 💘:_**  
😏😏

 ** _little froggy 🥰:_**  
_No_.

**_junhui 💘:_ **  
_I didn't even say anything_

**_little froggy_** 🥰 ** _:_**  
_You didn't need to say it, stop being horny, ok, I just want to see u_

 ** _junhui 💘:_**  
_Ok_ 🥰

This casualness and barely hidden fondness in their quite recurring text conversations has existed ever since they were introduced to each other on that fateful night, texting back and forth continuously. Back then, Junhui didn't have the guts to do much, nothing scandalous for sure. But they did keep in touch after. Texted almost everyday, updated each other on happenings in their lives, Minghao explaining to him how his career was developing, (he was the only one with an interesting life out of the both of them), how he got all these shows and bookings in different places around the world.

This show in Paris next week was Minghao's biggest gig yet, which is why Junhui feels honored to have been exclusively invited and giddy that Minghao actually thought to invite _him_ to experience one of the biggest milestones in his career.

The texting had always been the same though. The not-so-flirting but still kinda flirting, just toeing the edge of the cliff, kind of looking over it before deciding to take the plunge. But somewhere between the last two days, it seems like both of them simultaneously took the plunge at the same time. It was like an invisible barrier was taken down, a sudden flow to their conversations that had never been their before, an underlying sense of affection to them that hadn't existed for the past year.

The sudden halt in motion of the car started Junhui out of his thoughts and the butler was already out and opened the car door for him. Junhui quickly collected himself and snatched his bag up and made his way into the hotel.

Now he may have seen many luxuries in his life but it took quite a large amount of effort on Junhui's part to not gawk at the building he was in. Extravagance and radiance oozed out of every corner, the walls lined with pieces upon pieces of artwork that looked expensive as all hell, the place lively and bright and people lining up to serve the ultra rich who walked through their main doors.

In a daze, Junhui managed to get checked in and receive the keys to his suite and made his way to the elevators.

**_junhui 💘:_ **  
_room 403_  
_Don't keep me waiting 😏_

**_little froggy 🥰:_ **  
_Good thing i was already in the car on my way to the hotel then_

**_junhui 💘:_ **  
_wow so much effort just for me?_

**_little froggy 🥰:_ **  
_of course_  
_Only for you_

Junhui was going to squeal like a child in an elevator of a ridiculously expensive hotel in Paris. This is torture.

When he finally reached his room and all his luggage was brought in, he dismissed his bodyguard to go do whatever he wants (on the company's card, of course, everyone deserves a free time once in a while) and made his way straight to the bedroom to be greeted by the huge, clean, white bed without even taking a chance to look around his entire suite.

He scrolled around on his phone for a while, trying to distract himself while Minghao made his way over. Just as his eyes were getting too heavy to ignore, he heard a knock on his door. Quickly snapping out of it, he jumped up and scurried to the door and pulled it open.

It's been a while since he got to see Minghao with his own two eyes and not through a screen, but he can definitely say that no camera will ever do him justice. No camera will ever do justice to the man standing right before him, in his dress pants and buttoned up, expensive looking jacket, and leather shoes. No camera does justice to the tender eyes behind the colored sunglasses, and the lips being pulled taut in a smile, and the curves it leaves in his cheeks.

God, does Junhui want to kiss him.

"Are you just gonna stand there and stare at me, or am I going to be invited in any time soon?"

"Actually, you look kind of good here, I don't know."

Minghao rolled his eyes and put his arms around Junhui, pulling him into a hug.

Junhui wrapped around him tighter and buried his face into the others neck; just to breathe him in. He was too lost in Minghao to even notice that the both of them weren't at the door anymore and that Minghao gently pushed them into the hallway and closed the door behind him.

"I missed you", Junhui mumbled into the lapels of his jacket, smelling of one of the new lines of colognes Junhui couldn't bother to memorize.

He felt the pressure of his lips pressing against the side of his head, and a felt a mumble of "I missed you too", before he heard it.

"Have you eaten? It's 9 PM", Minghao asked, pulling back, looking into Junhui's eyes and brushing his hair off his forehead with deft fingers.

"Uhh, no, not yet", he managed to stutter out. He wasn't exaggerating at all when he said that their relationship feels like something completely new now, Junhui couldn't stop himself from blushing everytime they made eye contact. Every touch and stare felt so intimate.

"Well, let's eat then. Let's order in. We have all the time in the world right now, don't we?", Minghao said, smiling at him.

Junhui, dazed, could only think that _he'd love to have all the time in the world, if all of it was spent right there with him._

After quite a filling, gourmet French dinner, the both of them are now on the balcony of the room, with a direct view of the lit-up Eiffel tower, a glass of red wine in their hands, and Minghao's personal playlist of jazz music he likes.

("I made this playlist for when you came here so I could listen to these songs with you.

"Why?"

"I kind of... I don't know, associate all these songs with you, somehow?"

"But these are all love songs?"

All Junhui got as an answer was elf ears turning a pretty red.)

"How do you like it here so far?"

"I've been here for only a few hours, and most of them I spent with you, so pretty much the best trip of my life."

The other rolled his eyes again and brought his wine glass to his lips to avoid looking at Junhui.

"So, what do you want do now?"

"Are you leaving?", Junhui asks, a bit abrupt. But he doesn't want this night to end, and he hopes, desperately, that Minghao is on the same page as him.

"Do you want me to?"

"No. Not at all."

"Then I'll stay", he smiles, and Junhui takes a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"So, did you have any plans for when you've finally trapped me in your hotel room?"

He could sense where this was going.

"Yeah, actually," Junhui says as he gets up out of his chair, places his empty wine glass down on the table and straddled Minghao's lap, "I did think of a few things."

Minghao smirked, and leaned past Junhui to put his wine glass on the table, and finally wrapped his hands around his waist, "Do tell."


End file.
